TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday announced nine products that failed border inspections, including French mustard, Vietnamese durian, and Australian oranges — all of which were returned or destroyed.
The French mustard, imported by Gourmet’s Partner, contained 0.079 g/kg of sulfur dioxide — more than twice the legal limit of 0.030 g/kg, per CNA. This is the fifth batch of French mustard to fail inspection in six months.
FDA Northern Region Management Center Deputy Director Tsai Chia-fen (蔡佳芬) said the 48 kilograms of mustard were removed from circulation, and the importer’s inspection status has been upgraded from regular spot checks to enhanced spot checks, with a sampling rate of 20–50%.
Over the past six months, 36 batches of French mustard have been inspected, with five failing due to excessive sulfur dioxide, a 13.9% failure rate.
Two shipments of Vietnamese durian were also stopped. One batch, imported by Honghui International, contained 0.02 ppm each of the pesticides azoxystrobin and chlorpyrifos, exceeding the legal limit of 0.01 ppm. Another batch from Fongshuo Fresh Fruit had 0.06 ppm of oxadiazon (legal limit 0.01 ppm) and 0.03 ppm of damazon, which is not permitted.
The substandard durian shipments totaled more than 30,000 kg and were either returned or destroyed. Both importers are now subject to batch-by-batch inspections.
The FDA said that of 703 batches of fresh durian imported from Vietnam in the past six months, 16 failed inspection (2.3%), with issues ranging from pesticide residues to heavy metal contamination.
